


i think your love would be too much

by femmebots



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: 5+1 Things, Angst, F/M, Pining, tagging sovelyan for searchability although manon being a trevelyan is implied at best
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-26
Updated: 2020-01-26
Packaged: 2021-02-25 01:54:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,310
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22424284
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/femmebots/pseuds/femmebots
Summary: You sealed the rift with a glance, he said the first time they dreamed together,and I felt the whole world change.Or, five times Solas had a feeling and repressed it, and one time he did not.
Relationships: Female Inquisitor/Solas (Dragon Age), Solas/Female Trevelyan
Comments: 2
Kudos: 60





	i think your love would be too much

**i.  
**They should meet with the clerics in Val Royeaux as soon as possible, he and the Seeker have both advised, but to Solas’ consternation, they’re still very much in the Hinterlands. Their alleged Herald of Andraste — _Manon_ , she told them to call her, no family name — insists on gathering supplies for the refugees before they return to Haven. It seems cruel to object. 

So here they are, chasing wild rams in the hills southeast of Redcliffe, when the Herald pauses in the shade of a tall rock to check the map. “The man at the Crossroads said the cult was holed up here,” she’s saying to Varric, pointing at a mark on the vellum. “And we must be about _here_?” Solas watches her squint at the map, then at the horizon, as she tries to match the cliffs around them to specific smudges of ink. Then her gaze catches on something.

“Do you see that?” she asks. He does: atop an outcropping of rocks, there’s a glimmer of light and the glint of metal. It’s not marked on the map, she says, but it seems to lie between them and their destination. The fact that there are no major detours required persuades Cassandra to investigate.

It’s a relic of some kind, they discover once they clamber up the side of the cliff. A spinning golden globe, with an astronomer’s eyepiece attached, rests on a sort of pedestal. The abandoned camp behind it holds a few scrolls and stained scraps of parchment, which the Herald quickly gathers up. “Looks like they were torn out of an old book. I think this bit is in Tevene,” she says.

The four of them collectively manage to decipher the gist of the papers, although it’s slower going than one might hope. “The relics are called astrariums,” Solas confirms aloud. He hums in thought at the last lines of a particularly dense paragraph, then continues, “It seems they may lead to hidden caches, although what treasures those caches might hold—”

The Herald already has her eye to the astrarium’s telescope.

“Strange,” she says, pensively. Her hand drifts up to the eyepiece, adjusting the focus. “There’s something shining inside… little lights, like wisps.” Cassandra is now peering at the device as if she thinks that it might turn into a demon at any moment.

Solas considers the papers again, frowning. “You see lights? Interesting. The letter _does_ speak of connecting dweomers. And I believe this word is ‘constellations.’”

“Constellations,” murmurs the Herald. “Oh— _oh_! Oh, of course, it’s Judex!” She gestures him and Varric over, hovering beside the astrarium as they take a peek at its contents. “I could always see it from the north window in the library, back in the Ostwick Circle. There’s the hilt, look, and the edge of the blade… the letter said you’re supposed to connect them?”

It takes Solas a moment to realize she’s asking _him_. He glances up from the astrarium to reply, and his gaze meets hers. And then, suddenly, he can’t quite remember what he was going to say.

The Herald has very dark eyes, and in this moment, they’re alight with wonder. No, not quite wonder — it’s curiosity that’s making her eyes gleam, like flakes of gold buried in a riverbed. _Little lights, like wisps_ , he repeats to himself.

Maybe he shouldn’t be so surprised after the sheer number of questions she’s asked him about the Breach, about the Fade, about the mark on her hand. But he assumed those were questions born of a base sense of self-preservation. This is different: he can’t see any ulterior motive for her interest in these astrariums, just an earnest desire to know and understand. It’s something pure. It’s something _real_. He isn’t sure why that gives him such pause.

“Yes,” Solas finally says, lifting the crumpled parchment in front of him like a shield. “According to these writings, the dweomers are meant to be connected like constellations.” He rambles on for a bit to Varric and Cassandra, saying something to the effect that astronomy was an unappreciated art in the late Ancient Age, and the creators of these relics must have exploited that ignorance, while the Herald investigates the astrarium with renewed purpose.

She tinkers with the eyepiece for a minute or so. (To be honest, a Solas engaged in lecturing someone about history is not a Solas keeping very good track of time.) But soon enough, the globe swivels, a bolt of blue light emerging from it to spear through the sky, and two other columns of light surge forth to meet it from somewhere in the far hills.

“Well, _that_ did something,” Varric comments. Cassandra, who currently has the map, moves to mark the other lights’ locations.

Solas, for his part, is watching the Herald out of the corner of his eye as she looks up from the astrarium with a sort of triumphant, delighted laugh. He’s never heard her laugh before. Of course, she’s had little reason to laugh since they met in the ashes of the Conclave.

But he thinks he would like to hear it again.

**ii.  
**He first sees Manon truly angry in a small, dank shed by the Redcliffe docks. Most of the rebel mages are long gone; the Elder One evidently was not content to leave them here for the fledgling Inquisition to collect after it finished up at Therinfal Redoubt. 

Every time Solas thinks he’s figured out their Herald of Andraste, she finds some new way to puzzle him. Her interest in his travels through the Fade is unexpected from a Circle mage, and he’d begun to imagine her as a sort of renegade, chafing under Chantry rule. That image was at such odds with her decision to approach the templars before the mages that he told himself he _must_ have been wrong. He’d misinterpreted blind faith in authority as curiosity, that was all.

“The Breach weakened the Veil,” she said, when Solas let his disapproval slip. “There’s a greater risk of possession for everyone, and mages will be in even worse danger. Besides, the Chantry wants to bring the templars back into the fold— if we can succeed where they’ve failed, maybe we disarm the clerics.”

It was a more calculating answer than he’d expected. And he certainly hadn’t expected her to fend off an envy demon and effectively disband the templar order all in one afternoon. Perhaps, Solas thinks, nothing Manon does should surprise him anymore.

In the aftermath of Therinfal, when news arrived that Redcliffe had gone silent, Sister Leliana suggested a reconnaissance mission. Manon set out herself with Solas and Cassandra, bolstered by the Bull’s Chargers and a few Inquisition soldiers. The villagers were polite but unhelpful, as it seemed most of the rebels had left overnight without warning, and hadn’t been particularly communicative guests even before their abrupt departure. Some of the castle servants told alarming tales about the arrival of Tevinter magisters, but they had largely been kept in the dark about the goings-on.

The contents of this shed are more illuminating, though probably not in the way Leliana had hoped.

On their travels through Ferelden, from the Storm Coast to the Fallow Mire, they’ve encountered strange devices: mounted skulls with pale crystals lodged in one eye socket, apparently designed to locate magical shards. This abandoned building holds shelf after shelf of those skulls, and the sheer number of them only makes their new knowledge rather more gruesome.

 _The skull will only attune properly if the Tranquil is in close proximity to one of the shards when the demon is forced to possess him_ , the neatly-penned letter reads. _Even then, the blow must be delivered immediately…_

“So each ocularum is made from the skull of a Tranquil,” Solas says, breaking the uneasy silence. The Rite of Tranquility is revolting in itself, but even so, he thinks, this is _wasteful_. (Then again, can he expect better from the mages of this new world? For all that they bear the last tenuous connection to the Fade, so many of them are little more than animals.)

Cassandra is the one holding the letter. Now she drops it back onto the cluttered table where they found it, her voice heavy with regret. “I had wondered where they had gone. I should have looked harder.”

“No,” says Manon. “It shouldn’t have _happened_.”

It’s the first time she’s spoken since they discovered the letter. Solas turns to look at her and finds himself intrigued by the unfamiliar coldness of her eyes, the hard set of her jaw. “They shouldn’t have done it, even if no one was looking,” she snaps, clenching the grip of her staff hard enough for her knuckles to turn white, then turns on her heel and walks out.

In the end, Solas is the one who goes after her. He might be more adept at giving comfort than Cassandra, he thinks, and anyway he’s glad to leave the dank little shed, which reeks of death. Manon hasn’t gone far; he finds her pulling up fistfuls of blood-lotus by the water’s edge.

“Mother Giselle will be grateful for the herbs,” he says, gently. The corner of her mouth quirks up. He feels a twinge of pride, to think that he’s responsible for it.

“They wonder why people are afraid of us,” she says then, and his pride gives way to caution again. “You know what the Chantry says? ‘Magic exists to serve man, never to rule over him.’”

“That is what the Chantry says,” Solas agrees.

She presses her lips together, struggling to find the words. He stays with her, silent, while Manon collects her thoughts.

Finally she continues, “The Chant doesn’t say _mages_ exist to serve man. It says _magic_ does. And magic is— well, it’s a tool, isn’t it? It shapes reality, like— like a shovel shapes a flowerbed, and you can make beautiful things with it, but having a shovel in your hand doesn’t give you the right to swing it at somebody’s head. We shouldn’t need a _sword_ at our backs to keep us from butchering innocent people.”

The sun is setting now, scattering rose-gold light across her face and through the dark waves of her hair. There is a part of him that wants to tell her about the cruelty of gods, the crimes he has seen committed in pursuit of power, how extraordinary it is to him that a woman who holds the universe in her hand would care about a few dozen dead Tranquil.

“An admirable thought,” he tells her instead, because when she talks of justice with the sunlight in her hair and his own magic glowing green on her palm, she reminds him of someone he knew long ago.

**iii.  
**Her Inquisition needs a home, so he gives them Skyhold. 

Every day more pilgrims arrive to dedicate themselves to the Inquisition — to the new _Inquisitor_ , Andraste’s champion, this god-chosen girl who rose from the ashes at Haven. In a time of chaos, Solas knows, people will always reach for an anchor. They can learn to forgive her magic and the too-sharp ends of her ears.

Really, Solas should have guessed at her heritage far earlier than he did. Manon has a Marcher accent but not a Marcher name, there’s a distinctly elven look about the bridge of her nose, and her ears taper to a subtle point. But he suspects that asking someone if they have elven blood is considered rude in this era, so perhaps it’s better that the realization didn’t sink in until she told him outright.

In the end, it doesn’t matter, because these elves are not his people. The Inquisitor was born in the Wycome alienage, the half-breed daughter of an elven mother, and she lived there for nine years until templars took her away, and none of this makes her and Solas the same. (Even if the childhood lullaby she hums while she stokes a campfire has a painfully familiar melody.)

When he learns she’s studying to become a Knight-Enchanter, though, he feels the need to tell her that the discipline descends from the People. Once, he explains, it was _Dirth’ena Enasalin_ : the knowledge that leads to victory. He wonders what the arcane warriors of old would think, to see their magic used in service of the Chantry.

“Maybe they’d be pleased some of their knowledge survived,” Manon says. Having seen how much this world has lost, Solas can’t bring himself to disagree.

The morning after Manon returns from the Western Approach, Solas steps out of the rotunda to watch the sunrise. Instead, he finds her training in the courtyard.

He is, admittedly, glad he didn’t accompany her on her latest journey. Dorian and Blackwall have painted a dismal picture of the Approach with their accounts of endless sand, sulfur pits, and belligerent wildlife. But she’s been gone for almost a month, and in truth, Skyhold has been too quiet without her.

It’s not that Manon is particularly loud. It’s just that he’s grown accustomed to the traces of her presence: fragments of her conversations with Varric and Dorian and Leliana; half-read books she’s left on his desk, marking her place with sprigs of pressed embrium; the sound of her footsteps across the hall when she slips into the library late at night. Seeing her again feels like a knot behind his ribcage has shaken loose.

She’s running drills. Diagonals, advances, pivots. Her hair is a mess, but then, her hair is always a bit of a mess, dark strands wisping out of place as if buoyed by the electricity she channels so easily in battle. She lunges forward and the spirit blade flashes out, will made manifest — and it’s beautiful. She’s beautiful.

And that’s when Solas realizes he might be in trouble.

This changes nothing, he tells himself. She changes nothing. ( _You sealed the rift with a glance_ , he said the first time they dreamed together, _and I felt the whole world change._ ) The Dread Wolf will do what he must to save his people, and this is far from the first time he’s beaten his heart into submission.

Fresh from her encounter with the Wardens in the Western Approach, Manon and her advisors hammer out a plan of attack. Solas sequesters himself in the rotunda and takes solace in painting. It’s delicate work, but the careful steps are grounding. The fresco blooms across the wall in shades of red and gold and black. His gift to the Inquisitor, in the style of her mother’s ancestors.

He lines the rotunda with pieces of her story: the Breach, Therinfal Redoubt, the destruction of Haven. The next panel, it seems, will be her assault on the Wardens’ fortress.

“Will you go with me? To Adamant?” Manon asks him after she’s emerged from the war room. She tries to look optimistic, but doesn’t quite manage it. “Cullen says it’s going to be bloody, and… I need people I can trust. Solas, I know you’re angry at the Wardens, but we can stop them together.”

Solas is reminded of the first time he saw her, when her encounter with _his_ orb had brought her to the brink of death, and thinks, _You shouldn’t trust me_. Aloud, he tells her, “You only have to ask, _lethallan_.”

“What does that mean? _Lethallan_.” The Dalish, for all that they position themselves as authorities on elven culture, speak a broken version of Elvish; the patchwork variety used in alienages preserves even less of the vocabulary. It makes sense that Manon doesn’t know the word. Solas thinks she understands the intent, though, because her tone is not unkind.

“It means I consider you my friend, Inquisitor,” he says. And he tucks away the memory of her answering smile, bright and warm and real.

**iv.  
**To the relief of her advisors, and the disappointment of many an Orlesian noble, Manon adapts to political intrigue like a fish to water. Madame Vivienne almost looks proud. The woman has charmed half of the Council of Heralds and teased secrets out of the empire’s warring leaders, taking barbed comments in stride and trading several of her own. 

Her decision to bring Solas to the Winter Palace garnered significantly less approval from the Inquisition’s inner circle. Given her time in the empress’ court, Vivienne was an obvious choice. Cassandra, despite her dubious people skills, is a key member of the Inquisition, former Right Hand of the Divine, and a member of a respectable lineage. Solas, meanwhile, is an elven apostate with no ties to speak of. 

Amid Josephine and Vivienne’s concerns, Manon held her ground. Solas was a mage, so he wouldn’t have to smuggle weapons into the palace, and of her remaining mage companions, he was less likely than Dorian to provoke the Orlesian court. She finally won the dispute with an ultimatum: if not Solas, Manon declared, she wanted to bring Cole. The opposition yielded.

Per his request, Solas has been announced as the Lady Inquisitor’s elven serving man. The Dalish stories of his penchant for trickery are not entirely unfounded; in the guise of a servant, he can observe without being observed in return. Still, the palace’s servants — some of them Briala’s agents, some of them his own — seem unsure what to make of him, and remain taciturn. He supposes that a wolf dressed as a sheep still smells like a wolf.

The servants _are_ , however, diligent about keeping his glass full of some honey-colored Orlesian wine. He settles by a window that gazes out onto the guest gardens, soaking in the familiar sights and sounds of the grand ball. The names and faces change, but Solas finds that courtly intrigue is much the same, no matter the time and place. Power, deception, and opulence permeates the halls of Halamshiral, more intoxicating than the wine.

Manon flits around the palace in pursuit of Empress Celene’s would-be assassin, but she stops to speak to Solas whenever she passes (and whenever she needs him to accompany her into mortal danger, of course). “Have any of the nobles given you trouble?” she asks him partway into the evening.

It occurs to him that Manon knows very well what kind of trouble nobles might cause for an elven servant. “I have kept to myself,” he answers honestly.

“If anyone bothers you, tell me,” she murmurs. Then, with a spark of mischief in her eyes: “I’ll… I don’t know, conjure up a breeze and blow their hat into a fountain. They’ll never live down the indignity.” She slips back into the ballroom with a conspiratorial wink, and Solas pretends the warmth in his chest is from the wine.

He’s no longer surprised by Manon’s knack for seizing victory out of the jaws of chaos, but it’s glorious to watch even if the novelty is gone. The Inquisitor exposes Grand Duchess Florianne’s treachery before every noble house in Orlais, and she does it with an unfaltering smile. Whatever she says to Celene during the ensuing negotiations, Briala emerges as marquise of the Dales, while Grand Duke Gaspard ends the night an enemy of the state, awaiting execution.

For a moment, Solas is in Arlathan again, watching dynasties rise and fall as the Evanuris fought for power. He doubts the Evanuris would be impressed with his Inquisitor — a half-elven upstart, an arcane warrior who serves no noble house — but judging by Manon’s outburst in Redcliffe, and the contempt she’s shown for Tevinter’s magisterium, the feeling would be mutual.

Dozens of servants have been murdered, the de Chalons lineage is in shambles, and the grand ball continues as if nothing has happened. If Manon is exhausted by the night’s events, she conceals it well, mingling with the guests and putting her recent dancing lessons to good use. She waltzes and gavottes with several dukes, Josephine’s younger sister, and even, to Solas’ dismay, Commander Cullen.

(The dance seems more of a rescue mission than anything else, extricating her commander from his gaggle of unwanted admirers, but Solas has a potent mix of wine and nostalgia buzzing in his veins. His stomach lurches at the thought of Cullen’s hand on her waist. He wishes it were his.)

As the revelry winds down, the Inquisitor excuses herself to a balcony off the ballroom. Solas grants her a few minutes to catch her breath before he, playing the dutiful servant, goes to her side. “I’m not surprised to find you out here,” he says by way of greeting.

Manon laughs under her breath. “I’ve worn out my welcome in the ballroom.”

“I doubt that,” Solas chuckles.

“All right,” she concedes, shuffling over so that he can join her by the balustrade. Her elbow brushes against his, and his heart does a foolish little flip. “I’m just enjoying the moment of peace while I can. I’m sure it won’t last.”

He hums in agreement. They sit in companionable silence for a moment until Solas asks, “Why implicate the Grand Duke?” He was with her during her blackmail hunt through the royal wing; he knows that, had she chosen to, Manon could have ruined Briala or the empress as easily as she did Gaspard.

“Gaspard is a warmonger,” she says flatly. “He would have pressed the borders with Ferelden and Nevarra as soon as he thought he could. We’d never have peace with him on the throne.” She’s quiet for a moment, then adds, “And he told me elves have no place in politics.”

A fatal mistake on Gaspard’s part. Solas stifles a laugh. “I hope I did well,” Manon says.

 _You were magnificent_ , he thinks. In another world, Manon of Ostwick might have stood against gods. In another world, perhaps, Solas asks her to dance.

**v.  
**Solas knows the end is near. They’ve bested Corypheus in the Arbor Wilds, stealing the power of the Well of Sorrows and turning his lieutenant against him; it won’t be long before he retaliates. There’s an unspoken understanding spreading through Skyhold that the next confrontation with Corypheus will be the last. So Solas will stand with them for one final battle, and then—

And then he’ll leave. He’ll reclaim his orb from Corypheus, leave the Inquisition behind, devote himself entirely to restoring his world and his people. 

There’s a knock at his door.

It’s the middle of the night, and at first, he assumes it must be Cassandra or Cullen bearing dire news. He’s mistaken. “Solas?” comes Manon’s voice, tentatively. When he opens the door, she’s wearing a sheepish smile and holding a plate of pastries. “The cook made raspberry tarts.”

“I think it’s a bit late for raspberry tarts, _lethallan_ ,” says Solas, taking one.

She shrugs a shoulder. “Can’t sleep.”

Solas looks her over: the bruise-like bags under her eyes, her hair gathered haphazardly over one shoulder. “Come in,” he says. “I’ll make tea.”

The tea is some flowery blend he purchased when they were last in Val Royeaux. (He doesn’t care for tea. Manon does.) They settle on the little couch in the rotunda, Solas’ own cup of tea quickly abandoned. She chuckles when he sets it aside, her smile bright below tired eyes.

“I’ve been thinking, about everything that happened in Mythal’s temple,” says Manon eventually, tracing one thumb along the rim of her cup. Her mouth scrunches up, the way it always does when she’s deep in thought. “Do you think I made the right choice, letting Morrigan use the Well?”

Solas has little trust in Morrigan. Perhaps he should empathize with her attempts to preserve fragments of the past, but all he sees is a woman stumbling about in the dark, grasping at things she doesn’t understand. Granting her this power may yet prove disastrous. But to drink from the Well of Sorrows is to be bound forever to Mythal, and the thought of Manon paying that price, like one of the Evanuris’ vallaslin-branded slaves, is almost too much to bear. He would give the Well to Morrigan a thousand times over if it would spare his Inquisitor that fate.

“Cassandra said as much in the temple,” Solas says. “The Well’s knowledge comes with great risk. Better that Morrigan take that risk than you.” _Not you_ , he thinks. _Not you._

Manon answers him with a noncommittal hum, frowning down at her hands. She takes another sip of her tea, and she’s silent for a long while. The cup is nearly empty by the time she speaks again. “What you said about the elven gods… what Abelas said about the fall of Elvhenan. Every empire is built on someone’s backs, isn’t it? I shouldn’t be surprised this one was the same.”

“And yet you sound disappointed.”

“I wanted them to be better,” she says. The mark on her hand casts a green glow across her lap. “I hoped someone with power had used it for good, just once.”

 _You do_ , Solas thinks. And then he thinks, _I could tell her everything_.

The Dalish despise Fen’harel as the traitor who destroyed their people, but Manon was raised on hymns of Andraste and Shartan. She speaks of the Dread Wolf with a scholar’s curiosity, not hatred or fear. She wouldn’t turn her back on him. He can feel himself sinking deeper every day under the weight of all the secrets he keeps — would it be so terrible to set them free?

He wants to tell her the truth. He wants to rip out his heart and lay it in her open hands, a supplicant asking for mercy. He wants her to kiss him. He wants her to tell him that he was right, that he’s done enough, that he’s _good_.

But he is not good, and she deserves better.

“The pride of those who would be gods is one of this world’s great tragedies,” Solas says softly. He reaches out to take the empty teacup from Manon’s hands, and lets his fingertips linger against hers for a moment too long. “You should try to sleep.”

He starts to pull away, but Manon catches his wrist, her dark eyes shining in the dim light of the rotunda. He wonders if she can feel his pulse pounding beneath her thumb. “Solas,” she murmurs. “It won’t be long before Corypheus makes his next move. We all know it. And— and whatever happens, I want you to know that I’m glad you stayed.”

“As am I,” he says, and means it.

Solas looks at her, then, trying to carve her features into his memory: her high cheekbones, the soft line of her jaw, the spray of freckles across her nose. _She changes everything_ , he understands far too late. He never wants to forget.

He dreams of a little cottage in the hills, a garden of elfroot and embrium, children with his pale eyes and Manon’s wild hair. He dreams about the sound of her laugh, and he wakes up alone.

**i.  
**Two years, Solas thinks bitterly, and his heart still aches at the sight of her. 

Manon’s hair has grown longer since he last saw her, but no less unruly. Half of it has come loose from its braid, like a dark halo, during her battle with the Viddasala’s forces. Her face is sickly pale from the effort of suppressing the anchor; it burns poisonous green, crackling with Fade energy that courses up her arm and sets every nerve alight.

“I suspect you have questions,” he says.

Her mouth twists like she’s about to laugh. “My trip through the eluvians was very illuminating, actually. You’re Fen’harel. You’re the Dread Wolf.”

They chose her title well: he has never known his Inquisitor to give up on a puzzle. (He loves her for that, so much he can hardly breathe.) “Well done,” Solas replies.

He expects that she’ll demand answers, interrogate him about the fragments of history she’s found while traveling the Crossroads. But Manon has always had a talent for defying his expectations. “You left without even saying goodbye,” she says, reproachful. “Solas, you could have just _told_ me.”

“You had more than enough burdens to carry.” He knows that it’s an empty consolation.

Her expression softens, though it remains skeptical. “Tell me now,” she asks. And Solas can’t bring himself to deny her that.

He tells her of the Evanuris’ rise to power, the tyranny of false gods, how he strove to free his people from slavery. Mythal’s murder, and the punishment he devised for her killers. His creation of the Veil. And then the realization that by sealing away the Evanuris, by trying to save his people, he had destroyed them.

That mistake is his to fix, even if it means this world must die.

In a way, Solas is relieved to see the flash of anger cross Manon’s face. He’s earned her anger — it’s easier to bear than her compassion. “So you’d murder countless people, and for what?” she asks. “A dead empire you might not even be _able_ to restore?”

He turns to her, imploring. “Wouldn’t you do the same, to save your own?”

“We don’t need your pity!” she snaps, and Solas falls silent. “Do you think a farmer feels some great sense of loss because he can only touch the Fade in his dreams? He just wants a sturdy pair of shoes, and a good harvest, and a bed to sleep in. You want to help the elven people? You don’t need to tear down the _Veil_ to do it!”

They’ve had this conversation before, to a degree. He’s spoken of his alienation from city elves, his wariness of the Dalish. Manon was understanding then; he suspects she will be less sympathetic now. “You are not my people,” he says.

“No— your people are gone.” The words sting as if she’s struck him. “But they’ve grown into something new, and it deserves a chance to _live_.”

For all that Corypheus disrupted Solas’ plans, Solas never truly feared him. Nor does he fear the Evanuris who lie in uneasy slumber across the Veil. But he is terrified of Manon of Ostwick, because she makes him want to forget himself. Even now, some foolish part of him would cast aside all his pride and duty just to see her smile again.

“I’m sorry.” He exhales slowly, steels himself. “You deserved better. And I take no joy in what I must do.” Then the anchor flares, exploding with raw magic, and she bites back a scream.

He crosses the distance between them in a heartbeat. Doubling over, Manon leans against him, their quarrel temporarily forgotten. “The mark,” she chokes out through gritted teeth. “Solas, it’s getting worse.”

“I know, _vhenan_.” It’s a testament to her agony that she doesn’t ask what the word means.

She’s borne his mark far longer than he believed any mortal could, but even so, she cannot survive it forever. “It will kill you,” he confesses. “Drawing you here was— I saw a chance to save you.” Her elbow is digging into his side: a sharp reminder that she’s real, she’s _here_ in his arms, if only for one last moment. He steadies her as she gets to her feet.

Manon meets his gaze and holds it, resolute. He remembers an afternoon in the Hinterlands, and how her dark eyes shone with curiosity as she studied the astrarium. Determination shines in them now, the serene certainty of a woman who has worked miracles.

“You don’t have to destroy this world,” she tells him. “I’ll prove it to you.”

There is so much he’s left unsaid, so much that he wishes she knew. But language falls short, and they are almost out of time. And so, heartsick and desperate and dreaming of another world, Solas presses a first and final kiss to her brow.

“I will treasure the chance to be wrong again,” he says, and hopes that she can surprise him one more time.


End file.
